


Five Against One

by gardnerhill



Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Alternate Ending, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Community: watsons_woes, Gen, Prompt Fic, Story: The Five Orange Pips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-10
Updated: 2013-02-10
Packaged: 2017-11-28 19:52:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/678265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Can tragedy be averted?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Against One

**Author's Note:**

> For the Watson's Woes Challenge 025, "Turn Left." Veers off from about 2/3 of the way through "The Five Orange Pips."

"The first consideration is to remove the pressing danger which threatens you." I continued to give instructions to Mr. John Openshaw as to the disposition of the paper that threatened his life. I was coldly angry, but for now I was solely interested in making my client as safe as he could be whilst targeted by such a murderous crew as the K.K.K. I could lay my traps in peace and see justice done, once that was assured. "…And above all, take care of yourself in the meanwhile, for I do not think that there can be a doubt that you are threatened by a very real and imminent danger."

I should have known what my words would do. 

As John Openshaw re-donned his wet waterproof and took up his still-dripping umbrella – it truly was a foul night – Watson spoke from behind me. "Mr. Openshaw, let me accompany you."

My tentative apprehension for Openshaw's safety vanished – to be replaced by full-bore apprehension, even as I realised that it was the perfect solution. Watson has no gift of dissimulation, which cannot be said of me; "Excellent solution, Watson," I said as calmly as if I had suggested it myself and did not find it troubling in the least. "Mr. Openshaw, you have clearly had no prior experience in dealing with such ruthless men. We have. You will find Dr. Watson a valuable asset during these perilous hours." 

"But I cannot ask this of you!" Openshaw said, and he surely meant it – but the relief that shone in his face and resonated throughout his body, after the morbid terror that had gripped him throughout his audience with me, spoke the deeper truth of his heart. I saw again how very young he was, and cursed myself for my lack of observation; whilst I had been caught up in the twists and turns of the story's puzzle, Watson had clearly seen how frightened the storyteller had been and had instantly stepped forward to volunteer for active service.

"You do not ask," Watson said, standing. "I come of my own free will. You will be safer once your papers are on the sundial, and the sooner you do so the sooner Holmes can bring these brigands to justice." Watson headed up the stairs to his bedroom – ever the military man, he acted once acting was required. 

I stood and turned to my American Encyclopaedia to take down the K volume. 

When he descended the staircase, carrying the small satchel with which he accompanied me on my out-of-town cases, I resumed telling Openshaw his (their) instructions for safety's sake. I would find the answers to this mystery in London faster than in Horsham – and the sooner the better. 

"I shall take your advice in every particular – and shall heed everything Dr. Watson says," Openshaw said, shaking my hand goodbye as Watson donned his own waterproof and retrieved his umbrella from the stand. "Mr. Holmes, you have no idea how much lighter you have made my heart."

And you do not know how heavy you have just made mine, I thought but did not say. How could I shame my Watson's courage with cowardly behavior? How could I forbid him to endanger himself, thus saying in as many words that I would blithely send a man of two-and-twenty with no real awareness of the world's evil out alone against those villains? 

Only when our client was out the door and heading down the stairs to the entryway did I face Watson. I must arm him, if I was not to hinder him. "Have you never heard," I said lowly so as not to be overheard, "of the Ku Klux Klan?"

I told him what I knew, as quickly as possible. I saw his face set and a grim hard look come into his eyes as I described our opponents; surely this was how he had looked in Afghanistan. When I saw that look I bore my own fear as easily as he bore his trusty old Adams, which I knew was now loaded and ready in his pocket. A soldier is safe, in his barracks; but that is not what soldiers are for. 

"Keep your eyes open and your wits about you, my dear fellow," I said with a semblance of my usual careless affection. "I will be very glad to see you back in Baker Street before the week's end."

"If all goes well I shall have only had my peaceful bachelor's night in spoilt by this ghastly weather," Watson said, but the way his hand patted his pocket belied his light words. "We must bustle, if we are to catch the last train from Waterloo. Good evening, old man."

And he was out the door, going down to join Mr. Openshaw. 

Before the door had closed on them I strode to the mantel and began to fill my clay pipe. I did not look at the abandoned Clark Russell volume by Watson's empty chair, and refused to hear the sobbing of a lost child in the wind that howled over the chimney. 

I had inquiries to make, and then a night of work ahead of me. I ignored the miserable weather, but could not put from my mind the miserable ways of our fellow-men. 

*** 

By dawn the weather had cleared, as had a rough path in my brain through which my theories marched. I need only go down to Lloyd's and peruse their registers and files to satisfy myself on the details. Captain James Calhoun of the _Lone Star_ would not long be a free man, and if I intercepted him in a timely manner the gang's ringleader would be in gaol before nightfall. 

Standing and stretching, I looked bemusedly at the breakfast table neatly laid – Mrs Hudson was well-used to my odd ways and had continued her work. I walked over and looked at the unopened newspaper folded beside my place. One heading rose up and veiled my eyes.

**Tragedy Near Waterloo Bridge.**

I cannot recall precisely what happened in the interval between my reading that heading and being in a cab heading in that same direction. The newspaper was still in my fist, and my heart was as dried and shriveled inside me as an old orange pip. I had committed the lamentably florid account to memory. 

_The bodies of two men have been found under the bridge that leads to Waterloo Station. Last night witnesses reported hearing cries and the sounds of an altercation between nine and ten. Due to hindrance from the stormy weather, the bodies have only just this morning been pulled from the water; they have no identification upon them. One corpse displays marks indicating a beating; the other was shot through the heart._

The only other thing that remained lucid in my mind was what I had said to him last night: 

_Except yourself I have none._

Did I, now, have none?

*** 

As could be predicted, Waterloo Bridge was a Bedlam of police, gawkers, wagons and carriages. I alighted and walked, still wrapped in gauze as if I observed all from a great distance away. Some part of me began to wonder how I should tell Mrs. Watson, if what I thought had come to pass was so. 

I am the most complete fool in London. How often had I said to Watson that it was folly to deduce without data, as futile as making bricks without clay? And yet I permitted fear to rend my heart before I received all the facts of the matter, which quickly came to light as I walked. 

A flurry of foul nautical language and shouted invective revealed the battered red face of a man being cuffed and led into a Mariah by a squad of policemen – by his bearing, a captain; by his accent, American (specifically Texas). This was James Calhoun of the _Lone Star_. A black eye, a missing incisor, blood on his shirt; he'd run into a formidable boxer not six hours before – a man of a certain height who tended to lead with his right. 

The clouds lifted, and I could breathe again. 

Even before I saw the bodies laid out in the wagon I knew I would not recognise them. Dark from the sun, hair bleached gold, with the characteristic hands of career sailors and dressed in sailor's slops. These two were Calhoun's mates, and the other two members of the gang ("no identification" indeed – if that idiot newsman had thought to include their clothing description in the story it would have immediately pacified my heart). The battered fellow bore marks similar to those of Calhoun's. 

"We've detained both of them for questioning, Mr. Holmes," Inspector Gregson said behind me, and I looked over to him. "We were pulling the bodies out when Dr. Watson appeared with that lovely customer," and he jerked his chin at the wagon contained Calhoun, "trailed by another man. Looked about as bad as he did, and the story he told was hard to believe." 

"Oh, he may be believed on this one, Inspector," I said calmly, "and I will be happy to fill in the gaps on what happened, so that you may readily believe that both deaths are the clear result of self-defence on Dr. Watson's part. Where is he?" 

A jerk of the chin to another wagon. "Got a doctor tending to him now."

He lived; all else was secondary. 

"Mr. Holmes!" John Openshaw's voice rang from that direction. Another ring; handcuffs. Detained for questioning, the two deaths. The policeman guarding him knew me, and let him go to me with only a nod. 

"Have no fear, Mr. Openshaw," I said, and positively shocked myself at how light-hearted my voice was. "All will soon be sorted out." I knew the great bulk of the story even before Openshaw spoke, and his words only added fuel to the blazing pride and joy that burned in me like a furnace. 

"Oh, Mr. Holmes, you've saved me, you've saved me!" Openshaw's eyes were fever-bright behind his gold pince-nez – one lens of which was cracked. "Our carriage was waylaid on Waterloo Bridge, and Dr. Watson flew out of there before I could even blink, shouting at me to stay where I was. The fight sounded horrible, but when I heard the shot – ! He came back and said to stay with him, the third was getting away but not for long, and we tore down the Embankment. I was so angry, and so glad it would all be over when we caught him, I didn't need to be told twice." He beamed – an effect not at all marred by his swollen lower lip and blackened eye behind the cracked lens. "I was useless in the fight, but Dr. Watson wasn't. Oh, Mr. Holmes, if I'd gone home alone last night I'd be a dead man right now. You've saved me."

"On the contrary," I said. "I had nothing to do with it. I think once the pair of you are released that you should return to Baker Street with us while I confirm a few more details and reassure myself that this matter is settled." I would not take a second chance with his life – not when I'd nearly condemned him to death had Watson not spoken up.

Watson – 

Each stage of my clarification had helped me retain more of my control, restored me to myself. So when my friend – my sole friend, who remained with me still – appeared before me (nose bloodied but unbroken, ear bleeding, possible cracked rib – and he ran after the ringleader even so), I greeted him with no more fanfare than if he had merely stepped downstairs to join me for breakfast at the table. 

"Once I show Gregson my notes you will be a free man again, my dear Watson," I said, amused at the derbies. "And you will have the satisfaction of not only taking full credit for saving young Openshaw's life, but for preventing me from making what could have been a deadly error in miscalculation." 

"I can't say I enjoyed last night," he said, drawing a painful breath – I would see his ribs were properly bound before anything else happened. "But it was a satisfaction to take those blackguards down."

"The fools," I said. "They should have known their struggle was futile. It was five against one, and that one was stronger than the rest."

Watson shook his head, confused. My bizarre sense of humour often has that effect on that dear man – who was still here, still with me, still my exception. 

I smiled. "They used five dried seeds from an orange to frighten their victims. But you yourself, my dear fellow, are a pip!"


End file.
